CREATING RUSSOPHOBIA From the Great Religious Schism to Anti-Putin Hysteria

Useful Reviews

In Creating Russophobia: From the Religious Schism to Putin (Clarity Press, 2017), Guy Mettan points out that the charges of Russian political interference go back to at least the 18thcentury.

Russophobia resembles both antisemitism and Islamophobia in that “it exists first in the head of the one who looks not in the victims’ alleged behavior or characteristics. [It is] a way of turning specific pseudo-facts into essential one-dimensional values, barbarity, despotism, and expansionism in the Russian case in order to justify stigmatization and ostracism.”

This stigmatization and ostracism is in turnbeing used to advance a dangerous new arms race, interference in Ukraine and reinvigoration of the Cold War, which Progressives on both sides of the Atlantic should oppose.

Stephen Cohen –May 4, 2019

Three important but little noted books provide much useful history and analysis: David S. Foglesong’s The American Mission and the “Evil Empire”; Andrei P. Tsygankov’s Russophobia; and, most recently, Guy Mettan’s Creating Russophobia, which equates it with “Russo-madness.” They examine many factors: ethnic peoples (now independent states with large diasporas) with historical grievances against both the Tsarist and Soviet empires; historical developments beginning in the 19th century; today’s American military-industrial complex’s budgetary need for an “enemy” since the end of the Soviet Union; other current anti-Russian lobbies in the United States and the absence of any pro-Russian ones; as well as other explanatory factors.

Robert Billyard –May 4, 2019

In writing his book Creating Russophobia: From the great religious schism to the anti-Putin hysteria he reminds us of George Orwell’s dictum; In times of tyranny it is treason to speak the truth. So Mettan commits “treason” as he provides us with a compelling historical perspective of the origins of Russophobia and why it has reached hysterical proportions in today’s world.

Where so many of his journalist colleagues in the Western lame- stream media are disgraced propagandists he goes to the very core of the truth.

“Creating” is the operative word in his title as that is just what the present Russophobia is all about. It is manufactured propaganda intended to vilify, to create division, and provide a scapegoat.

It is also hate mongering. In order for the Holocaust to take place, a generation of Germans were taught to hate Jews. Now, we are taught to hate Russians.

—Le Temps, Switzerland –November 27, 2018

“The first charge Guy Mettan levels at western media is of applying double standards. The criticism is valid. Guy Mettan carries out beneficial work formulating it and treating his readers to an expose of the various techniques used in the political sphere by the masters of disinformation.”
—Le Temps, Switzerland

—Libération, France –November 27, 2018

“Like Saddam Hussein’s mythical weapons of massive destruction in 2003, Peter the Great’s fake will has been used to justify the aggressions and invasions that the Europeans, and now the Americans, still carry out against Russia.”
—Libération, France

—Panorama, Italy –November 27, 2018

“By hating Russia, one hurts oneself. Swiss journalist Guy Mettan pieces together the reasons of detestation of the Kremlin and of a rhetoric that goes back to Napoleonic times despite the long list of aggressions perpetrated in the meantime by the West. And he explains why pushing Moscow toward Asia is a very serious error.”
—Panorama, Italy

—THE VINEYARD SAKER –November 27, 2018

“Guy Mettan’s book is a formidable deconstruction of the imperialist mindset and as such it is truly a ‘must read’. It is short, very well written and deserves to printed in millions of copies.”
—THE VINEYARD SAKER

Why do the USA, UK and Europe so hate Russia and Vladimir Putin? How is it that Western antipathy, once thought due to anti-Communism, could be so easily revived over a crisis in distant Ukraine, against a Russia no longer communist? Why does the West accuse Russia of empire-building, when 15 states once part of the defunct Warsaw Pact are now part of NATO, and NATO troops now flank the Russian border? This book unpacks a history of blaming Russia…

“Guy Mettan’s book is a formidable deconstruction of the imperialist mindset and as such it is truly a ‘must read’.” THE SAKER,Global Research

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SYNOPSIS

Why do the USA, UK and Europe so hate Russia? How is it that Western antipathy, once thought due to anti-Communism, could be so easily revived over a crisis in distant Ukraine, against a Russia no longer communist? Why does the West accuse Russia of empire-building, when 15 states once part of the defunct Warsaw Pact are now part of NATO, and NATO troops now flank the Russian border?

These are only some of the questions Creating Russophobia investigates. Mettan begins by showing the strength of the prejudice against Russia through the Western response to a series of events: the Uberlingen mid-air collision, the Beslan hostage-taking, the Ossetia War, the Sochi Olympics and the crisis in Ukraine.

He then delves into the historical, religious, ideological and geopolitical roots of the detestation of Russia in various European nations over thirteen centuries since Charlemagne competed with Byzantium for the title of heir to the Roman Empire. Mettan examines the geopolitical machinations expressed in those times through the medium of religion, leading to the great Christian schism between Germanic Rome and Byzantium and the European Crusades against Russian Orthodoxy. This history of taboos, prejudices and propaganda directed against the Orthodox Church provides the mythic foundations that shaped Western disdain for contemporary Russia. From the religious and imperial rivalry created by Charlemagne and the papacy to the genesis of French, English, German and then American Russophobia, the West has been engaged in more or less violent hostilities against Russia for a thousand years.

Contemporary Russophobia is manufactured through the construction of an anti-Russian discourse in the media and the diplomatic world, and the fabrication and demonization of The Bad Guy, now personified by Vladimir Putin. Both feature in the meta-narrative, the mythical framework of the ferocious Russian bear ruled with a rod of iron by a vicious president. A synthetic reading of all these elements is presented in the light of recent events and in particular of the Ukrainian crisis and the recent American elections, showing how all the resources of the West’s soft power have been mobilized to impose the tale of bad Russia dreaming of global conquest.

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Book Details

GUY METTAN is a journalist and Swiss politician. Former director and editor-in-chief of the main Geneva newspaper Tribune de Genève, he is presently the executive director of the Geneva Press Club and columnist for various Swiss newspapers. Member of the Geneva Parliament since 2001, he was the speaker of the Parliament in 2010 and author of several books, most lately this successful book on western russophobia originally published by Editions des Syrtes. There are now French, Italian, Russian, Serbian, and Swedish editions of this title, in addition to this one in English.

Reviews

7 reviews for CREATING RUSSOPHOBIA From the Great Religious Schism to Anti-Putin Hysteria

—THE VINEYARD SAKER –November 27, 2018

“Guy Mettan’s book is a formidable deconstruction of the imperialist mindset and as such it is truly a ‘must read’. It is short, very well written and deserves to printed in millions of copies.”
—THE VINEYARD SAKER

—Panorama, Italy –November 27, 2018

“By hating Russia, one hurts oneself. Swiss journalist Guy Mettan pieces together the reasons of detestation of the Kremlin and of a rhetoric that goes back to Napoleonic times despite the long list of aggressions perpetrated in the meantime by the West. And he explains why pushing Moscow toward Asia is a very serious error.”
—Panorama, Italy

—Libération, France –November 27, 2018

“Like Saddam Hussein’s mythical weapons of massive destruction in 2003, Peter the Great’s fake will has been used to justify the aggressions and invasions that the Europeans, and now the Americans, still carry out against Russia.”
—Libération, France

—Le Temps, Switzerland –November 27, 2018

“The first charge Guy Mettan levels at western media is of applying double standards. The criticism is valid. Guy Mettan carries out beneficial work formulating it and treating his readers to an expose of the various techniques used in the political sphere by the masters of disinformation.”
—Le Temps, Switzerland

Robert Billyard –May 4, 2019

In writing his book Creating Russophobia: From the great religious schism to the anti-Putin hysteria he reminds us of George Orwell’s dictum; In times of tyranny it is treason to speak the truth. So Mettan commits “treason” as he provides us with a compelling historical perspective of the origins of Russophobia and why it has reached hysterical proportions in today’s world.

Where so many of his journalist colleagues in the Western lame- stream media are disgraced propagandists he goes to the very core of the truth.

“Creating” is the operative word in his title as that is just what the present Russophobia is all about. It is manufactured propaganda intended to vilify, to create division, and provide a scapegoat.

It is also hate mongering. In order for the Holocaust to take place, a generation of Germans were taught to hate Jews. Now, we are taught to hate Russians.

Stephen Cohen –May 4, 2019

Three important but little noted books provide much useful history and analysis: David S. Foglesong’s The American Mission and the “Evil Empire”; Andrei P. Tsygankov’s Russophobia; and, most recently, Guy Mettan’s Creating Russophobia, which equates it with “Russo-madness.” They examine many factors: ethnic peoples (now independent states with large diasporas) with historical grievances against both the Tsarist and Soviet empires; historical developments beginning in the 19th century; today’s American military-industrial complex’s budgetary need for an “enemy” since the end of the Soviet Union; other current anti-Russian lobbies in the United States and the absence of any pro-Russian ones; as well as other explanatory factors.

Jeremy Kuzmarov –May 4, 2019

In Creating Russophobia: From the Religious Schism to Putin (Clarity Press, 2017), Guy Mettan points out that the charges of Russian political interference go back to at least the 18thcentury.

Russophobia resembles both antisemitism and Islamophobia in that “it exists first in the head of the one who looks not in the victims’ alleged behavior or characteristics. [It is] a way of turning specific pseudo-facts into essential one-dimensional values, barbarity, despotism, and expansionism in the Russian case in order to justify stigmatization and ostracism.”

This stigmatization and ostracism is in turnbeing used to advance a dangerous new arms race, interference in Ukraine and reinvigoration of the Cold War, which Progressives on both sides of the Atlantic should oppose.

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